


Storm King's Thunder: Eye of the Beholder [wip]

by valamerys



Series: Storm King's Thunder campaign fic [8]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, LOTS OF BODY HORROR, Limb mutilation, general panic, there's a beholder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23094589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valamerys/pseuds/valamerys
Summary: Bad things happen to Rekhien during the fight with Darthek, and Marin has Feelings about it.
Series: Storm King's Thunder campaign fic [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1659832
Kudos: 5





	Storm King's Thunder: Eye of the Beholder [wip]

**Author's Note:**

> The Stormchasers (and Kitro) have descended into the Sightless Sanctum in an attempt to free Rekhien from the creep of the orb powers that have begun to weaken him. They've defeated Ulvith, Kitro's brother and the original inheritor of those powers, and discovered that the source of the powers is Darthek, an ancient beholder.

Marin remembers the flash of black circling a wizard’s palm, the feeling of the world narrowing before darkness swallowed her vision. But whatever fear she felt then, in the bandits’ den, was a pale predecessor to the horror that consumes her now, as a black beam streaks across the temple and strikes Rekhien in the chest. 

Already on his knees from the force of Marin’s magic abandoning him, clutching at his orange hand, he doesn’t so much as cry out, he just… goes slack and _falls_. Something rips from Marin’s lungs, a scream or his name, and the hand-creatures swarm him, their eyes and teeth gleaming wet and discolored.

She tears to Rekhien’s side, almost tripping on the uneven stone as she falls to her knees— _Get away from him_ — 

Some of them have latched on, sunk their jagged incisors into his flesh through gaps in his armor. Marin hoists his body up enough to get her arms around him, and the spell falls from her mouth on instinct, more of a shout than an incantation.

With a rumble of thunder, She’s pulled sideways through the fabric of the material plane, and Rekhien with her. The creatures burn in their wake. 

The shift is second nature, now, and she navigates them on pure instinct— they reappear to the side of the room, one of the wide pillars sheltering them from Darthek. On the other side, Kitro yells something to Phyn, and there’s the distinct hum of Theseus’s smite. Rekhien _died_ , and did any of them even notice?

“Theseus!” Marin cries, Rekhien deathly still in her arms and panic igniting her voice.

Darthek gives a guttural growl, and Marin realizes with a flare of fear that she wasn’t paying attention to his eye when she cast the spell. It could have been useless. She can’t do that again. The bites of the creatures left bleeding gouges on Rekhien’s chest and good arm, and he’s so pale and so still where he lies— she can’t mess up again, she has to help him, she has to be smarter than this.

A gust of air subsumes them, and Theseus lands with the heavy metallic clamor of his armor. He drops to his knees, close enough that the edge of one of his huge wings brushes Marin’s cheek as he pulls them back.

“Help him,” Marin says, uselessly; Theseus is already pulling out the diamond, whispers a prayer Marin can’t make out.

“Not yet, Rekhien.” It’s calm, but Marin can hear the ragged edge of fear hidden in it. He presses the jewel to Rekhien’s chest and it glows at the contact. “We still have work to do.”

He prays again, a chant, something ancient-sounding. The light flares and vanishes like a dying star, and when it does the diamond is gone.

Marin remembers, when Theseus did this to her, slowly opening her eyes; feeling strange and slow, like she’d been asleep. But Rekhien’s eyes don’t open. Instead his face scrunches up. He props himself barely upright and retches up a stream of oozing black ichor; it pours onto the floor and clings to his lips. He tries to say something through it, but the words are garbled around his convulsions. 

“Rekhien—” Theseus tries.

Rekhien gasps for breath, phlegm like ink dripping down his chin. The words are still thick, but there’s no mistaking them this time: “Cut it off.”

Marin’s blood turns to ice.

He tears at his armor and clothes, ripping the sleeve that’s already disintegrating. The scales that turned his hand green and then orange have spread nearly to his elbow, and the infection creeps further upward even as Marin watches. The bulging eye in his palm looks frantically between the three of them as Rekhien yells, now, _“Cut it off!”_

Marin might be sick. They can’t do this. _They can’t do this._ But Rekhien looks to her with a wide orange gaze and there’s bone-deep terror in it— alongside a level of conviction that borders on feral. It’s an expression she’s never seen on him before, even at his most determined. 

He is so, so scared. He’s also _sure_. Maybe Marin is losing her mind, but it’s enough.

She shoves Rekhien flat on his back again, and he doesn’t resist. She pins him at the shoulder and fishes a kerchief out of her pocket with her other hand to shove it into his mouth. In books, they always gave the person something to bite down on; amidst the panic coursing through her, it’s a strangely clear thought. That, and the certainty that she doesn’t have the strength to cut through _bone_.

Marin’s hands shake so badly she can barely pull her shortsword from its sheath, but it comes free, and she shoves it, hilt-first, at Theseus.

She gazes up at him. Her throat burns with tears. “I don’t think I can do it.”

Theseus’s face is ashen, his grip on the trident white with force. He takes the sword with his other hand, slowly, as if he’s moving through water. Rekhien yells a muffled _Do it!_ and Marin holds tight to his shoulder. If she _thinks_ about doing something as nightmarish as _holding Rekhien down while Theseus cuts his arm off_ , she’ll freak out, but she doesn’t need to _think_ , she just needs to _do it_.

Theseus raises the sword and looks at it blankly. Something flickers across his expression. His mouth opens, but he’s interrupted by the sounds of battle, as something collides with stone and Phyn cries out.

Whatever Theseus was going to say dies in his throat, and he meets Marin’s gaze, solemn. “Someone has to distract Darthek.” 

He rises and drops the sword. It falls to the floor just out of reach. 

_“What?!”_ Marin shrieks, but it’s swallowed by the rush of his wings launching him into the air. Rekhien is still yelling, but she barely hears him over a surge of terror so acute her head goes light and fuzzy. No. _No_ . It has to be Theseus who does it, why wouldn’t he just _do it_ — 

Theseus must strike true, because Darthek screams; colored beams fly from behind the column and Marin barely ducks out of the way. The scales crawl further up Rekhien’s arm, claiming more of him, and he’s shouting into the gag, begging her; this can’t be happening, she can’t do this.

There’s the sound of a blast and Marin looks up to see Kitro, badly bloodied, gazing across the room at them both. There’s something wrong with him; his movement is a slow stagger, almost pained; but he takes in Rekhien, their position, the discarded sword— and it’s clear he understands immediately. With stilted movements, he falls to his knees, and where his sword clatters to the stone he draws back his arm and _shoves_ it. It skitters across the room to rest beside Marin’s knee.

“Do it!” He snarls, guttural, his pale eyes flashing.

 _She doesn’t need to think, she just needs to_ **_do it_ ** _—_

Marin’s fingers close around the hilt without her willing them to, as if she’s possessed. It’s shockingly light in her hands, and the double blades sing softly as she raises it above her head.

For a moment, time seems to hang on the sword’s edge: Rekhien’s muffled cries, the golden flare of Theseus’s radiance, Darthek’s slavering noises of pain. Marin’s pounding heart and trembling hands and the absolute desperation animating her like fever in her veins.

And then Marin brings the sword down, just below Rekhien’s shoulder, as hard as she can.

The sick crunch of bone reverberates through Marin’s whole being as rekhien _howls_ into the gag. A sob lodges in her lungs and she pulls the sword away, feeling the grotesque resistance of the muscle and viscera she didn’t sever. The eye in Rekhien’s palm is staring at her, _straining_ , as if it might break free from his flesh and he’s screaming and _the scales are still spreading_ —

Tears blur her vision and her grip is slick with blood, now, but she draws back and strikes again. It’s weaker, a sloppy cut, but she _pushes_ , and the metal finds stone this time. 

Suddenly the air is rent by a hideous, ear-splitting screech. Marin turns to find Darthek’s massive eye looming over them, and she stumbles backwards and drops the sword, a scream smothered in her throat.

**Y O U T R Y T O R E J E C T M Y B L E S S I N G.**

The words are for Rekhien, but Marin hears the echo in her own mind as she stares helplessly into the eye. The pure black, slitted pupil is a void large enough to swallow her. 

**B U T Y O U H A V E A L R E A D Y A C C E P T E D I T.**

Rekhien gives a weak groan, and something in his disconnected arm _shifts_. Marin watches in abject horror as the scales jump further, past his shoulder— and muscle and skin twitch and stretch into orange-green tentacles that probe the messy cuts, trying to reconnect what she severed.

One of his roving eyes lands on her, and an orange burst of light explodes across her vision. 

It’s both extraordinarily painful and feels like nothing at all. Her mind goes blank, the world goes numb, and for a moment she loses the sense of where her body begins and ends, as if she’s completely come apart. After a moment, her vision returns, and she gets the sense that she’s curled in on herself like the spider in the corner, but movement is completely beyond her grasp, a weakness like death gripping her.

A heavy hand lands on her shoulder. _Theseus,_ she thinks helplessly, too faint to even raise her head to confirm. Vitality pours into her from it, a gasp of air into suddenly hale lungs. Why _now_ , why did he come back _now_ why did he _leave them_ — 

_[theseus disconnects rekhien’s arm and takes it, rekhien starts succumbing to the transformation, phyn turns into a bear, marin decides to go tf off and blast darthek. Kitro has been thrown into a wall or something.]_

The lightning that has itched beneath her skin since she last saw the sky leaps to her command, easy and bright and _strong_ . It arcs from her hands with a deafening crackle and Darthek never sees it coming— the white-blue electricity devours him. Flesh melts from bone, eyestalks writhe and pop with gory splashes. His unearthly shriek is mirrored by Rekhien’s, and tears track hot down Marin’s cheeks, but she holds on, and _on_ , as long as she can, the energy a bridge of raw pain between them.

When the power finally shatters, she reels back, lightheaded from the sudden absence. Darthek is half a corpse now. White pieces of skull flash beneath the smoking, shredded remains of flesh, his huge, central eye gashed and bleeding. His whole form vibrates with frenzied agony, and he turns on Rekhien— 

**_R E A C H O U T A N D T A K E T H E P O W E R._ **

Theseus draws back with a cry, trident aloft, wings spread, but Darthek is too enraged to be caught off guard by him. A surge of the beholder’s power shoves him back, deflects bear-Phyn’s attacks.

Rekhien, slumped against the column, is nearly completely orange now, his clothes eaten away by the magic. Those horrifying eyes blink from his chest, his forehead; tentacles still reach from his regrowing arm, seeking what they lost. 

Theseus attacks again, and is rebuffed again. For a moment, Marin feels like a terrible witness, a spectator of some tragic play. But then— of course Theseus isn’t hurting him, Marin thinks with a tinge of lucid madness. Lightning returns to her fingertips, a crackling spark.

Theseus doesn’t have this _rage_.

Fury spills through Marin and the magic feeds on it. How dare anything hurt Rekhien like this. How dare something force them to make these choices. They did _all of this_ , traveled to the ends of the realm, fought and hurt and died, embroiled themselves in a civil war, for what, for some _creature_ ? They haven’t come this far to die here, or to give Rekhien up now, and _anything that thinks otherwise can get fucked._

The lightning is more vital, now, like the dark, rich blood that spills from the deepest wound. There is no arc this time, the lightning is simply within her, around her, through her, and then it is not, because it is burning Darthek alive from the inside out.

_[ANTICLIMACTIC SORRY Darthek dies and Phyn patches up Rekhien]_


End file.
